The Return Of The Death Ray by Michael Davis: Straight No Chaser #95
I’m about to go big bad Negro on a major appliance company. I spent a GRIP (to the un-hip among you re: republications- a ‘grip’ is a lot of money) on THREE yes THREE (3) washing machines. The first one stopped spinning and in a stupid attempt to unplug it and then restart it I fell and broke the glass door. I almost broke my neck but even thou I was madder than McCain (“I CAN’T BELIVE I LOST TO THAT B…”) I knew the breaking of that door was my fault.
Because I have NO patience to wait for anything (Except business deals- A deal takes the time it takes) I immediately bought another one. After a few uses the second machine stop spinning. The same thing that happened to the first machine. I called the company who sent out a repairman who promptly told me that the problem was not covered. But he fixed it then told me that the problem would occur again because the issue is a ‘defect’ in the way the machine was made. Some weeks later the same thing happened again. Another repairman was sent out and this time I was told it could not be fixed and it was not covered.
Long story short, I went freaking nuts, I called the manufacturer who AGREED to refund 80% of the purchase price of the next machine. This was agreed upon only after I informed them I would make such a stink that it would make the ‘War on terror’ look like a GREAT P.R. move in comparison.
I thought the smart thing to do was just replace the damn machine with another model but this is the best that they could do. I was sent three (3) letters from the company stating CLEARLY what our agreement was.
So I bought yet another machine and sent in the proof that I did. Did I get a check? No-I got a letter telling me that they were not satisfied with what I sent them.
W.T.F?
I sent them proof that I bought another machine and everything else they asked for and they sent me this bullshit letter?
OH NO THEY DID-ANT.
If I don’t get my check within the next few weeks I will PUBLISH everything they sent to me and link the MANY websites where dozens of other consumers who are dealing with this SAME issue. Then I’m calling my JEWISH LAWYERS and it’s ON. Why make a point to say ‘JEWISH LAWYERS?’ because in my opinion they are the BEST.
I know, I know this may get pricey but I don’t care. I WANT WHAT I WAS PROMISED! So if I have to spend more than the washers are worth, then so be it-I will NOT be fucked with…period. Trust me when I say the world will know what kind of screwed up operations this major company is running. Can I win? I don’t have to and I don’t care if I do. What I care about is EVERYBODY knows how I was treated.
Or to put it bluntly-it’s DEATH RAY TIME!!!
I’m the kind of guy who will make you regret ever screwing with …ever!!!
I hate HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE…HATE; companies who talk about ‘service’ then treat people like shit.
Costumer service? Ha! I say HA!
For those of you that don’t know yes, I have a Death Ray. Yep, I have a real life Death Ray. I’m capable of hitting a target 3000 miles away. I can take out an entire country if I so desire. What am I doing with a Death Ray? Hello!!!! M.O.T.U. here. That stands for MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE and as M.O.T.U. I get to have a Death Ray…that and I read comic books.
The time for asshole companies to stop treating people like dirt is now.
So that is why you were targeted Blockbuster Video. Why you Blockbuster? I’ll tell you why…not to long ago YOU, Blockbuster Video announced ‘…no more late fees.’
So why do I get a call from Blockbuster telling me that I would be charged the full cost of a video if I did not return the film before a certain time?
W.T.F?
I took the video back on the day it was ‘due’ and I was told I was going to be charged a ‘restocking’ fee.
Here’s my conversation at the store:
M.O.T.U: Why are you charging me a ‘restocking’ fee when there is no late fee at Blockbuster?
Tool of Blockbuster: Yes sir it’s a fee to restock the film.
M.O.T.U: You are charging me a fee to place the film back on the shelf??
Pawn of Blockbuster: Err…yes.
M.O.T.U: Give me the damn film and I will put it back myself.
Evil henchman of Blockbuster: I can’t do that sir you don’t work here.
M.O.T.U: You won’t work here either if I unleash MY DEATH RAY!
Target of Death Ray: Your Death ra…?
ZAP!!
I recently went to a strip club (research for a book I’m writing…yeah that’s the ticket) they advertise free admission on Thursday nights. When I got there ON THURSDAY NIGHT and I was told that there was a ten dollar ‘drink fee’ that you had to pay on admission.
W.T.F?
I would tell you the name of the club but it’s not there any more…Death ray.
I’m looking for a new truck. I went to a car dealer who tried his best to tell me how to buy a car. He kept lowering the monthly payments.
Asshole.
Anybody with any brains knows that lowering the monthly payments does NOT lower the price of the car…duh. I told this idiot FORD DEALER on Ventura Blvd in Woodland Hills CA. I wanted him to lower the price of the truck and that the only reason I was even in there is because the new F150 truck is badass. He told me that if money was an issue that I should consider a pre-owned car.
W.T.F?
Instead of working with me like an adult this PUSSY continued to treat me like a silly teenager who was about to buy his first car. So now instead of a F150 I’m looking at the new Dodge Ram, which costs twice as much as the F150, and it’s even cooler. Why not just go to another Ford dealer? Hells no, fuck Ford. This is the company whose CEO took a private jet to Washington during the worst economic time since the great depression to ask for money.
No that’s wrong. The Ford CEO did not ask for money he, along with two other idiot CEO’s BEGGED for money. Begged like a stupid whore who needed money before her pimp beat her ass. Well when Ford goes belly up maybe I’ll return to that dealer and buy that truck for pocket change.
Or maybe I will use my Death ray…
Man, I just hate when companies assume they can get over on you. I simply have a NO tolerance for anyone that thinks I’m stupid. I’m not the one on TV in front of 200 million Americans BEGGING FOR A BAIL OUT.
Lastly, there are about a dozen bill collectors calling my home looking for someone who is not me. I have tried a MILLION times to explain to these guys I am NOT who they are looking for. Now-I no longer tell them it’s not me instead I promise to pay them money but first they must get their daughters to service me sexually. I also tell them they are welcome to sue me and invite them to do so while calling their mothers fat sluts. In fact I come up with the worst stories I can imagine and tell them that.
I went so far as to tell one bill collector something so horrible that I just knew the police would show up at my door.
Nope, the very next day I got another call from the SAME bill collector company just asking for money
Assholes.
Why go though all this? Here’s why, these people simply hang up when they speak to you and your number goes back in the computer to be called again. Over and over.
NOBODY takes the time to make sure they are not calling the wrong person-they simply go on to the next sucker on their list. So I now make it my JOB to waste their time as much as I can. I have even agreed to payment plans and when they call back and ask where the first payment was I simply say; ‘I spent it on white women and watermelon, asshole.”
The next day I get another call.
DEATH RAY TIME.
So be warned washing machine company, you are about to be done like an ugly girl looking for attention at a frat house drunken party.
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December 5th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Oh Magnificent MOTU,
The washer problem is one I had my own self just a few months back. A Sears Kenmore, made by Whirlpool. Bought thirdhand from an auld phart who’s a regular at the store. He told my wife he had a washer he’d sell us for fifty dollars. We paid him, and got maybe four usages out of it.
When I was little, my uncle bought a washer for me and my mother. Whirlpool. 1966. That son of a bitch was still running in 1995.
Were we in Memphis, I’d point you at my favorite Jew Lawyer, Irving Salky. He’s not just a Jew, he’s a HARLAN ELLISON JEW. Short, overeducated and snarky.
Collectors. By Federal law, if a collection agency calls you and you tell them not to contact you again, they can’t do it. So the next time, instead of telling them they can suck your huge black dick, tell them, politely, “You have the wrong Michael Davis. Do not contact me, in any way, ever again. If you do, you will hear from my attorney.” And hang up. Your method, while certainly more entertaining, just pisses them off, and they’re cranky enough to begin with.
The days of getting a cool deal from a car lot are long over unless you go in with a wad of dead presidents in hand, and then they look at you funny. My Detroit Uncle, Verlin, owned a salvage yard back in the Sixties, and made a dog-choking wad of money. His one extravagance was cars. September, every year, he’d go to the Buick dealership and walk the lot until he found what he wanted, which was usually the most tricked-out Electra on the lot. Then he’d go find some poor hapless bastard who had no idea who he was. He’d let the kid go through the pitch, tell him about the great financing options, all that… and he’d haul out the wad of hundreds he’d just gotten from the bank and start ticking through them. “How much for cash?”
He did the same thing with his sons. When Denny wanted a new GTO, Unc would take him to the Pontiac dealer and they’d pull the same stunt. ‘Twere a joy to behold. My half-brother did it to a Ford dealer in ’93, when he bought his new Mustang. He was polite, though, and didn’t do it in front of everybody.
Quality of service is as alien a concept to most companies as square rigging a ship or breadboarding electrical equipment. They have no idea what it is. Blockbuster may say there’s no late fee, but there is; they just changed the name. It’s the same hidden charges horseshit that the airlines have been catching hell over recently.
I love it when you get cranky, Michael. You sound like the evil mutant bastard child of Hunter Thompson, Mike Royko and Stokely Carmichael.
Miles
December 5th, 2008 at 7:35 am
“Your method, while certainly more entertaining, just pisses them off, and they’re cranky enough to begin with. ”
I think you just hit the truth and shot right past it.
I see it as similar to the laws about being able to shoot a criminal in your house. They entered YOUR home (via the phone, but still), you are legally and morally allowed to do ANYTHING YOU WANT to them.
I usually take advantage of their lack of language skill, and their machinelike adherence to the script. When they ask “Is this …?” I answer, “And you are?” The script says I’m supposed to say “Yes” or “No”, but since I say neither, their brains misfire. That’s only where it STARTS.
Here’s another prizewinner. One of the things they drill into the customer “service” people in India is you NEVER hang up on a customer. EVER. They could be threatening to molest your daughter with the severed dick of a rampant bull, and you can NOT hang up, just keep trying to help them and if all else fails, call for a supervisor if one is on at the time. So they never hang up. EVER. Even if the conversation is OVER.
So don’t insult them or ream them out if they don’t help you…just don’t hang up. Just play the Silence Game with them. If they ask if you’re still there, say “yes”. If they ask if they’ve answered your issues, say “yes” or “no” as the situation applies. But don’t hang up. You can actually HEAR their eyes dart back and forth in their skulls as the run through the loop of “I MUST AND YET I CANNOT” in their heads. It is hiLARious.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I realize this will make me sound even more naive and child-like than my recent review of BOLT, but what most astounded me about the car company CEOs was that they went to Washington WITHOUT a plan for the money they were requesting. If you ask to borrow $25 from me, I will ask you what it’s for. They didn’t even do that much, and they want $25 billion.
Is this what they teach you in business school?
December 5th, 2008 at 9:05 am
“Then I’m calling my JEWISH LAWYERS and it’s ON. Why make a point to say ‘JEWISH LAWYERS?’ because in my opinion they are the BEST.”
And we appreciate your support, Mr. Davis. By the way, be sure when you buy your new Dodge Ram get it with the new Jewish-Made “Firestein Tires.”
That’s right… Firestein Tires… stops on a dime, and then picks it up!
December 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Martha –
Can I borrow $25 from you? It’s for…ummm… medicine. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Medicine.
Marc —
Jews make tires? Yeah, right. Vulcan was Jewish.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Sure, Mike. What kind of medicine? Is there enough to share? And when do you expect to pay me back?
See, asking questions is easy! So easy, Congress can do it?
December 5th, 2008 at 10:38 am
‘I love it when you get cranky, Michael. You sound like the evil mutant bastard child of Hunter Thompson, Mike Royko and Stokely Carmichael.’
Thank Miles, It makes me proud to have my name mentioned even in passing with those giants of the written word. I am SO not worthy…but the next time I meet a Asian girl I’m using that line.
I may leave out the whole ‘evil mutant bastard’ line also…no maybe not, I’m good with that.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Vinnie,
As always you make a GREAT point. The problem with me is I only have so much patience for assholes. After a while (and this has been going on for over a year) I’m done. I have tried everything including asking politely not to call me back.
Nothing works-so now I’m all about wasting their time. These people don’t care about me or the person they are really looking for. It’s a numbers game pure and simple. Well in my case their number is up and if I can disrupt their operations in any way then I will.
I’m well aware that my actions are somewhat childish but I read comics, collect Barbie dolls and look forward to Christmas like I was eight years old so I’m not the most mature in some instances. This issue is one where I feel I need to show these guys just who the fish they are dealing with.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:04 am
See, here’s the thing about customer service. You wouldn’t need it all that much at all if the manufacturers actually made a decent product. But buying a washing machine where a part is actually DESIGNED to fail and it’s not even covered? That’s sick, man.
I hate, Hate, HATE build-in obscolesence with the white-hot rage of a thousand burning suns. I understand people make useless crap that’s designed to wear out ’cause they want to keep consumers buying more useless crap, but why can’t they just as easily make useful crap that works so people will WANT to buy more instead of HAVING to?
The current worldwide depression may yet presage a mentality of thrift and demand for Good Stuff That Lasts rather than the Next Big Thing… but I’m not necessarily holding my breath.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Have you bought that fourth washing machine yet?
December 5th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Guys, I hate to bring us all down, but Forry’s dead.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_en_ot/obit_ackerman
Miles
December 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
In 1999, I was a technical manager at Sears Home Central, and I supervised all the in-home laundry and cooking technicians working calls on the north side of Chicago and nearby suburbs. I then made a move back into public affairs and was hired as the public relations manager for Amana Appliances — a position I held in 2000 and most of 2001 (until Maytag bought us out and cleaned house).
In both instances, there was a customer service department to handle complaints, but in both instances, I had to handle the customers who were too hot for customer service to handle. In the latter case, any media-related cases (i.e., those which could have involved, or did involve, negative media attention) . For example: The 60 Minutes segment producer from NYC whose window air conditioner problem bounced around for months until it was finally passed my way.
Not knowing the details, I still think that if you bought a new machine, and it stopped working while under warranty (usually the first year), you are getting screwed if they are doing anything other than fixing the problem for free. I’ve never heard of an “80 percent” voucher, especially if you are dealing with Sears. From my experience, if the Sears technician can’t fix it, his/her technical manager should be able to authorize you a comparable brand-new machine at no cost to you.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Yeah, losing Forrest J. Ackerman was a bitch — an inevitable one, but still a bitch. He was a kind, generous and very gracious man.
People simply don’t know how Forry was the lynchpin of our post-war culture. His efforts gave us guys like Ray Bradbury and inspired guys like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas: he was, to my generation, what Buck Rogers was to the pre-WWII generation — a major source of inspiration.
Every time we see the work of Fritz Lang, particularly Metropolis and M, we have Forry to thank.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Agreed. If it hadn’t been for Forry, the Universal horror and monster movies would have been forgotten long ago. He was, for sf, fantasy and horror, our biggest booster.
But he also pulled one or two stunts that are less than kosher. When Robert Bloch was on his deathbed, Forry sent him a note with a card in it asking him to sign it so he could have Bloch’s last autograph.
I heard about this just now from Joe Straczynski, who got a call from Harlan Ellison right after it happened. It’s not a pleasant memory to associate with Forry, but it’s proof that even the best of us do stupid, thoughtless shit sometimes.
Miles
December 6th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Hilarious! And oh so justified for the unleashing of your ‘DEATH RAY” upon the guilty.
By the way, might I suggest that you adopt the following as your theme song for the reasons that are obvious in the lyrics?
I present…” I Can’t Get Next To You (Unless You’re An Asian Girl)”
December 6th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Martha,
In the Bizzaro World of Business Excellence…. Not only do you come begging with private jet catered sirloin and lobster fumes on your breath, no detailed recovery plan or promise to never come begging again….you return and beg for even more money….like 9 Carl Sagan’s worth.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
“Firestein Tires… stops on a dime, and then picks it up! ”
That’s marketing gelt, baby!!
December 6th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
We give AIG and Bear-Sterns a total of $500 billion without any questions asked and with no promises of repayment, yet when the auto companies ask to borrow a tenth of that, we get the Spanish Inquisition.
If this was a case where just one of the 3 American car companies needed help, it might be a different case. It’s all 3 at once. This is a systemic problem throughout the USA. The recession is global.
If the Big Three fail, so does the entire country.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
The Big Three can declare bankruptcy and go into receivership. They can renegotiate with the UAW and find a way around this. They can switch business models and go with the Japanese structure. But if they want to go on with Business As Usual, they’re going to need to do some serious juggling.
Alan, the country is failing already.
And we should have nationalized AIG and Bear Stearns. The banks will take the money they’ve been given and piss it away. GM would likely do the same. Ford and Chrysler need to streamline things. We’ll see if they do or not.
The car makers aren’t the problem. Bloated salaries for the corporate execs, in all aspects of business, are the problem.
I want a tenth of the severance pay that was given to the asshole who sank AIG after six months. I could pay off all my bills and live quite comfortably on 2.2 million for some time to come.
With the whole thing, I could buy a really nice house and start my own business. And put a lot of friends to work.
Miles
December 6th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
“And we should have nationalized AIG and Bear Stearns.”
Co-sign.
“The car makers aren’t the problem. Bloated salaries for the corporate execs, in all aspects of business, are the problem. ”
You’ve got to add the unions as a major element as well.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Mike,
When you bought the washers, did you buy the “extended warranty” as well? I hope not, with the way the “standard warranty” has worked out so well for you.
A lot of times if there is a defect, that means, more often than not, there will be several documented cases on file at the BBB (Better Business Bureau) website. If this part is “unfixable” there should also be a lemon law listing somewhere in the world wide web. Can you say “Class Action Lawsuit”? I know you can…Then get in touch with those attorneys and take it from there…Or, better yet, you could always start your own.
As for telemarketers, if you haven’t already, register your numbers with the National and Statewide “Do Not Call Lists”, those are updated every 90 days, and all businesses must adhere to the program.
In the interim, next time they call, tell them, that the person used to live there, that you knew them, and where they work, furthermore, tell them that this “friend” of yours gave you a forwarding work, and home number, in addition to the address.
Then, give the telemarketer the phone numbers and address of the people who have pissed you off at the washing machine company (as a tip, don’t use any 800 type numbers, they’ll know it isn’t possible and the jig is up). Because, when you give them that information, they HAVE TO put it into the computer database or lose their jobs. ANY information with change of address of phone number are always documented.
Just a couple of ideas, and tips…
Shane
December 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I had a Death Ray once. It didn’t work. By the time I got around to contacting the manufracturer, they had gone out of business or left the Galaxy or something. Good luck.
For some reason I’m reminded of Flobots, “Handlebars.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs
Your reach is global, your tower secure
Your cause is noble, your power is pure
December 7th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
“You’ve got to add the unions as a major element as well.”
Can you be more specific? The UAW’s already made major concessions — to both the “big” 3 and to Congress — and they’ve been coming off far better than the idiotic bastards that run the joints.
The UAW doesn’t make cars nobody wants to buy; the car companies do. The UAW just represents the interests of the poor — and now mostly unemployed — schlubs who, like all of us, must do their boss’s bidding. GM says you make crappy gas guzzling SUVs and Hummers, you can’t sneak around back and build America a real car.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Mike G…
Back in July, I realized that my 13 year old car was finally at EOL. I’d been thinking green for awhile, but when gas went to over $4 a gallon I made the decision to purchase a Prius. (BTW, I hope that no one is being fooled by the 3 card monte game that’s being played with the oil prices and the general public. The monster is coming back)
As I was performing my due diligence, I had the pleasure of talking with a Toyota rep who shared with me her long history in the auto industry. Back in the day (almost 20 yrs ago) she’d been an consulting analyst who’d been tasked with providing scenario projection models to one of the big 3…(Oh what the heck…it was GM)… At that time she warned the execs that due to the wastefulness of the US production line (steel sitting on docks for weeks as opposed to the Japan JIT model in which steel was used within hours) and the ever rising total salary costs set by the unions (wages, insurance, ‘can’t fire me’ locks, etc) it was inevitable that the costs couldn’t be sustained.*
She shared the anecdote that one of the big boys came up to her after her report and told her that ‘if you were a man I’d punch you in the mouth! We’re GM…we ARE the automobile industry. We’ll NEVER be in the position you’re telling us!”
* Granted…the grossly bloated salaries, perks, egos, hubris and incompetence of the execs are the primary causative factors behind this monumental failure…but unions pushing for more and more concessions that weren’t focused on producing high quality products or keeping the industry viable and competitive with Japan, but rather making sure that they received automatic salary bumps even in down cycles helped to poison the well.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Reg, I’ve never played the Detroit Shuffle. Every car I’ve owned has been used, some of them heavily. The newest car I’ve had was a 1990 Mercury Tracer, and it had some mileage on it.
My favorite was a 1976 Ford Torino Elite. 351 Windsor, 2-barrel, shift kit in the transmission and glasspacks. Capable of 135 mph, twitchy, and had an oil leak that meant pouring at least two quarts down its neck every hundred miles. But damn, she was fast and loud. My mother knew I was coming at least a mile away; those Thrushes sang.
My least favorite? A tossup between my Escort, with a manual transmission that got chewed to Wheatena from my driving style, and my Delta 88, the Red October, which had a loose distributor and kept slipping timing. When she was running, though, she was unstoppable.
The car of choice, given the current economic conditions? A Fisker Karma.
The dream car, screw conditions? Still the Black Beauty.
The car from Hell, screw all conditions? Jay Leno’s thousand-horse Olds Toronado. Jesus, have you seen this thing? Refitted for rear drive, and the 1100-plus-horsepower racing engine has been detuned to a mere 850, and it’s still a handful. It’s like a four-wheeled version of a Granville Brothers racing plane; one wrong move and you can find yourself flat one your back in a bean field.
Miles
December 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Reg –
It’s management’s responsibility to focus on producing high quality products and keeping competitive; it is not something for which they can bargain. According to our labor laws and precedents, certain rights are reserved for management and these issues fit square in the middle of those rights. Yes, hubris killed the American auto industry. They stuck their heads in the sand 32 years ago, and foreign companies have been kicking their protruding butt ever since. The believed that Americans want big cars strictly because those are the cars where they make the most profit. Instead of changing the conditions you outline, instead of going with the hybrid engine when Toyota offered it to GM years ago, they stuck to their guns and shot their feet clean off. None of that has anything to do with the people who make the cars, nor could it.
I have only purchased “American” cars (i.e. Big 3). I wanted to buy a Prius when my Saturn had 140,000 miles on it, but I felt I couldn’t make the 10 month wait. I bought a new 2005 Focus; it now has 63,000 miles on it with hardly any work. It ain’t the health insurance, it’s the lack of national health insurance. It’s impossible to compete with a foreign product that has no insurance costs because those costs are paid for by the government; by the Japanese people.
And it ain’t the COLA-based salary bumps, and it ain’t even the unneeded steel rusting on the docks. It’s the Big 3′s belief that Americans will buy big cars because Big 3 says they should. Until about 18 months ago, you could drive around Detroit — as I have done — and never see a billboard for a “foreign” car manufacturer. You’d rarely see a “foreign” car; everybody had an in or a cousin with an in at the Big 3. So the execs would look out their limo window and see nothing but their own big cars and believe that’s what people want.
Idiots. And now they’ve got the public convinced it’s the fault of the evil unions? Right. And we’re buying that crap the way we — until recently — bought the rest of their crap.
As for me, screw it. next time I’m buying Felix Leiter’s Studillac.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I remember that thing! Bond hated it, called it a hotrod. But by all the gods, a Studebaker Golden Hawk with a Caddy 500 under the hood? Fuckenay, bubba, me wannit!
They did a bit on 60 Minutes last night with Lesley Stahl in Saudi Arabia, where they showed her two new oil fields out in the Empty Quarter. One uses a horizontal drilling method where the drill snakes through the ground to get at oil that couldn’t be reached ten years ago. Another has the oil in a spot where it’s under low pressure, so they’re pumping in seawater to force it out. They say there’s fifty or more years supply in just one of those fields.
And just one holds more oil than in all the Alaskan oil fields.
Sounds to me like they want to keep us dependent on their oil. And Lesley asked them that; they danced around it.
What we need is a small power plant that can generate enough electricity to power a car for hundreds of miles on nothing but garbage. Mr. Fusion, anyone?
BTW, Mike, have you seen the Karma yet? Sleek, sexy little 4-door that can hit 135 mph. Plug-in hybrid. Nice. Google it. If this were twenty years ago, Detroit would go to any lengths to kill it. They’d do the same to the Tesla if they could.
Miles
December 9th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Mike, all of your points are, of course, extremely valid and accurate. Don’t get me wrong..I believe that unions are necessary. I was a union member myself way back in the day and understood first hand the depths that the suits will stoop to in order to pad their pockets at the expense of the worker bees.
But on the flip, there are times when the unions work against the long term interests of their respective companies to the detriment of both the workers and the bottom line by pushing for concessions that serve to weaken rather than strengthen the horse that suit and blue collar are depending on for survival.
And on a personal note…I’ve tried to hold fast to the ‘buy American’ credo…but my luck wasn’t as good as yours for my earlier cars. My GM (cause my Daddy’s always been a GM guy) cars didn’t hang anywhere close to my last car before I had to trade them in. It was my pre-owned Nissan that kept trucking for over 200K.
December 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Miles…
You ain’t never lied.
“Sounds to me like they want to keep us dependent on their oil. And Lesley asked them that; they danced around it.”
I keep saying to anyone who will listen… If you want to know the real reason why we went to ancient land…. go rent Sri ana. Or better yet, read the book on which it was based.
“If this were twenty years ago, Detroit would go to any lengths to kill it. They’d do the same to the Tesla if they could.”
I absolutely want a Tesla. And as soon as Big Mike inks that mega deal with me I’m gonna get one.
Link to all six segments of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’. Absolutely criminal.
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/youtube-cars/posts/tag/car%20documentry/
December 15th, 2008 at 8:56 am
OK, here’s the deal. Until they come up with an electric car that is:
- as reliable
- has as much range
- is as easy and fast to refill
- is as easy to repair and maintain
- is as cheap
as a gas-driven car, they will remain curiosities. Period. They will remain the purview of the hippie and the holier than thou smug-emitters.
Why do you think the first hybrid cars were so gad-damned hideous? Becaus ethey KNEW that the people who were going to buy them first were going to want that car to stick out like a sore thumb, so that EVERYONE would know they were driving one. I believe they came with a hat which read “I drive a hybrid” that you could wear while NOT driving the car, so people would still know you had one.
Hybrid cars are a fine idea, but until they are as cheap and easy to mainitain as a Gas-car, they will not be purchased by the average driver.
Yes, oil pollutes. Yes, we should find other sources. But money drives everything. If it’s more expensive, the majority of people will not buy it, good or bad.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
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September 22nd, 2010 at 11:59 am
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